Half of all U.S. mobile subscribers are now smartphone owners

Nielsen has announced that half of all mobile subscribers in the U.S. now own a smartphone. Comparing February 2012, where the lines for both feature phones and smartphones meet in the above graph, with February last year we can clearly see a massive jump from just 38%. That's an average increase of smartphone owners by 1% per-month.

With low-end, affordable Android and Windows Phones, consumers are now able to hop onto the smartphone train without breaking the bank balance. As technology continuously evolves and social networking becomes more prominent in our lives, more mobile phone owners are looking at ways to stay in touch with friends and family that doesn't require either texting or calling.

"More than two-thirds of those who acquired a new mobile device in the last three months chose a smartphone over a feature phone."

According to Nielsen's marketshare data (for the U.S.), Android still runs the show with a 48% hold of the market. iOS is at a comfortable 32%, RIM struggles on with 12%, and Windows Phone is lost somewhere among the "other" 8%. While many could look at this negatively, this data is prior to Nokia and AT&T's upcoming marketing blitz for the Lumia 900, which is set to available on April 8th.

With the steady rate of consumers acquiring smartphones, now is the time for Nokia to push through the Lumia family of handsets to capture the market, and Microsoft needs to be behind them throwing surplus dosh away at every opportunity.

Reader comments

Half of all U.S. mobile subscribers are now smartphone owners

This is great in soon everything I can to get people to get windows phones and its working and if ur gonna have a smartphone y not have a real smartphone like windows u kno the computer giant lol y choose anything els :P

This just puts things into perspective. Many people get the impression that iOS and Android have a big percentage of the whole market but all they have is a big percentage of half the pie. There is still half the pie available to Microsoft plus any converts.

Well, it's not that everyone shows you his phone when he passes you by, so, you never know. Still, you will see many Windows Phone 7 devices once you leave the North American continent and stop by in Europe. The (US) American cell phone market has always been a strange phenomenon, mostly, because of a real unlocked cell phone market doesn't really exist here and all you can buy, is, what the provider forces on you. Here, you miss out on amazing handsets because of no provider is carrying it. In Europe, you'll find official stores that don't belong to any provider and you can buy any unlocked / unbranded phone without a contract or pick a provider of your choice - a freedom, the average Joe here in the US never had.

Back to the article:
No wonder the smartphone market is increasing! There are barely any other phones available these days.